A
Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion,101st
Airborne Division

On 7 December 1950, the
4th Light Aviation Section was constituted in the Regular Army and was assigned
to the Eighth US Army in Korea where it remained until deactivated on 5 November
1954.

The 4th Light Aviation
Section was reactivated on 1 July 1956 as the 101st Aviation Company and
assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell,
Kentucky. On 3 December 1962, as the Army's aviation force structure continued
to grow, the 101st Aviation Company was redesignated as the 101st Aviation
Battalion.

Company A deployed to the
Republic of Vietnam on 11 April 1965 and became the first element of the
division to see combat since World War II. A Company, 101 Aviation served from 04/1965-09/1966 at Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam.

In 09/1966 the A Company Colors return to Ft.
Campbell, the company assets were transferred to
the 336th Assault Helicopter Company.

After the
colors were returned from Vietnam in 09/1966 the Company regrouped, acquired
assets and trained at Ft Campbell KY in preparation for it's return deployment
to Vietnam.

In
12/1967 Company A returned to
Bien Hoa, Vietnam and then moved north to start Camp Eagle in northern I Corp.
The division was reconstituted Airmobile in July 1968, and several separate
theater aviation elements were reorganized under the 160th Avn Group Later
renamed the 101st Aviation Group that included A Company, B
Company,
C
Company,
D
Company along with Headquarters
Company.

01/1969
Redesignated as A Company, Comancheros,
The company served until 01/1972,
at Camp Eagle, Republic of Vietnam

From 01/1972-10/1987, the Comancheros were stationed at their home in
Fort Campbell, KY

The 101st Aviation Battalion was redesignated the
4th Battalion on 16 October 1987 when the 101st Aviation Regiment was activated.
A
Company, 101st Aviation was re-designated as
Alpha Company, 4/101 Aviation Regiment "The Comancheros" 101st
Airborne Division, Fort
Campbell, KY. A 4/101 Avn has served two tours in Iraq and One tour in
Afghanistan since 9/11. They are scheduled for deployment to
Afghanistan in 2008.

The Comanchero Name

A/101st Aviation's was
first assigned to Camp Eagle in December of 1967 and their call sign was Alpha
Eagle until the first part of 1969. The story behind the renaming from Alpha
Eagle to Comancheros.
Please contact the
webmaster
if you have any additions or
corrections to this story or any other information on this web site.;

In 1968 101st Airborne Division got a new
commander, General Zais, and he wanted to be having the Eagle 6 call sign for
his own. Although the story is that the old timers were not happy about the changing
of the call sign. The A/101 veterans had just gone through TET 68 and they were
very proud of their performance and the call signs reputation earned in that
battle. We tried to become Anheuser-Busch
"landing at the brewery". The beer company liked it and even sent us decals. The
eagle for the 101st and the star because we were THE BEST! They were even going
to get us furniture, but it all got shafted by senior command (Zais) who thought
it wasn't tasteful.

However, the search was now on for a new nickname and call sign for
A/101. After some very serious discussions in the O Club, Andre "Strange Tom" Thomas, Comanchero 23, Larry "DoDo"
Herring, Comanchero 10, and Capt. Michael Gouch
Comanchero 40, from El Paso, Texas, remembered a group called the Comancheros that existed in the 1830's and lived around the Commanche Indians.
They raided both sides of the border and traded with the Indians and such. He
remembered them as a despicable bunch, made up of Mexicans, Spaniards, Indians,
Blacks and Gringos from varied ethnic backgrounds. The Comancheros were feared
by all of West Texas, trusted by none and loved by few. They, however, did have
a common bond of Brotherhood that was to be admired. Andre "Strange Tom" Thomas
liked the John Wayne movie THE COMANCHEROS, threw the idea into the pot and the
next day we pulled pitch as THE COMANCHEROS.

Although the
spelling of the name has changed over the years, The very first spelling was Komanchero,
then changed to Comanchero, then changed to Commanchero in 1987 and finally in
1999 it was changed back to Comanchero which the current unit is called today.

Several views of the Comanchero
Company Area at Camp Eagle

The Comanchero Hideout. Unless you were there at the time you
likely wouldn't believe it - almost unfit for human habitation. This was taken
in either late Nov or early Dec 68. Some time later, starting in about Jan 69,
the Comancheros started a self-help building program and had several neat troop
billets by the time I left at the end of Apr.Photo and comment by John D. Kennedy

The A/101 AVN Company area, May 1969

Provided by
Augie Uleckas

The Comanchero Company area in 1971

Photo By Robert Carr.

Landing at the Company Area

Photo by Tom Nietsche

Building the Hideout at Camp Eagle

When I was with the
Comancheros we had a platoon leader named 1LT Larry Herring (I am not sure of
the correct spelling of his name). I know he was an architect and he is the one
that drew up the plans for our TOC and for the pilots new shower. He made them
come to life. A little bit of everyone helped on the TOC. It was made of really
thick timbers. We initially tried to cut one with a hand saw and it wore three
of us out before we finally gave up and went looking for a chain saw which
finally did the trick. The shower came about because one of our pilots had a
brother with the Sea Bees out at Eagle Beach and they needed something done
that we could help them with so we got a hot water heater from them in exchange
for our services. So we endured that Emerson
heated shower until we got our new shower/clothes washing building done. I
digress though from the purpose of this information, and that is to give credit
due to 1LT Herring for his talents. I also heard that he was the individual
that drew up the Comanchero patch.

It was Larry Herring, (Do-Do), who put together the plans to build the TOC. He
also went on to build the O-Club with a little help from his friends, it was
much nicer than the tent. Later on the he organized the new showers (god were
those nice), and also upgraded a few of the hooch's behind the original ones
that were getting overcrowded. I think you're correct, (Do-DO) did design the
original Comanchero patch.
There were several missions to requisition materials for the
club. In fact I wonder if Gouch remembers the little trip he and I took to Hue
via a jeep from Camp Eagle. We wanted to obtain some items for the club that
would add a little to the atmosphere. We headed off to Hue and when we got there
proceeded to cross over the perfume River Bridge into Hue and then turned off to
the east along a canal. There were a few shops that had nice tiles, bamboo
curtains, etc. We were just starting to get into negotiating with the shop
keepers when a couple of Marine MP's with steel pots, flack jackets, etc.
stopped us and turned us back, apparently there were some bad guys in the area.
Needless to say we didn't argue with them.
There were also several trips to the Marines supply yard in
Phu Bai to get lumber, nails, and other basic materials. It always amazed me
what you could get for a bottle of scotch. If I recall correctly "Weird Harold"
requisitioned an ice machine from Camp Evans but the guys he took it from found
out and we had to return it.
Towards the end of our little jaunt in Chu Lai Larry got a
really sweet deal; he went TDY to Thailand for the remainder of his tour as an
Army artist.
Larry organized a get together of some former Comancheros I
believe in 1974-75 in Oklahoma City. I remember Bobby Scanlan, Mike Gouch,
myself and a few others showed up for the week-end. The last I heard from Larry,
(1976-77), he was engaged and was a practicing architect in OKC.Victor W. Anderson, Comanchero "22" Double Deuce, 08/1968-08/1969

Comanchero Unit Organization

In the time of Vietnam, the
tempo and intensity of daily flight operations was relatively high. The company
had twenty UH1H's and normally put up a package of 1 and 10 daily, the 1 being a
console C&C and the 10 being slicks, against a mission array that might include
an assault or two, and then a full range of diverse support missions for various
elements, usually in single ship or two ship missions.
At night, there was a 'nighthawk' mission in a specially
equipped aircraft, and early before daylight, a weather check...Some lucky soul
would have the honor of cranking and sitting on the departure end of the Hideout
'runway' until the fog lifted enough to get out, then would report what he saw.

We averaged about 1600 hours a
month, had our own mess hall, motor pool, communications shack, POL, service
platoon, and aircraft maintenance detachment, even an LOH in the form of an OH-6
that battalion was quick to pool.
For routine assaults, our attack helicopters came from the
battalion attack helicopter company, in 1970-71, D Company, Hawks, had 12 AH-1G
Cobras, and would send a light fire team, two aircraft, to make up what we then
called a "1-10-2" package, e.g. "one, ten, and two". We looked to keep 4 or 5
mission ready aircraft on the ground in the revetments, and 3 or 4 in
maintenance, and made sure the operations officer and the maintenance officer
got along and coordinated well.

The group sitting on top of a
M-48 Tank the South Vietnamese left at Lam Dong. L to R - Bob Morris, Paul
Clewell, Rachel Torrance, Bob Clewell, Ray Ferrante, and two Vietnamese
guides. (photo courtesy of Bob Clewell)

Comancheros
in RVN carried this card and the Comancheros of A 4/101 AVN are now carrying
the exact same card.

The Hideout Club

Photograph provided by
Stephen “Smokey” Stover

The Hideout Club

Photograph provided by
Stephen “Smokey” Stover

Comanchero company area
1970

Photograph provided by Joe
Turner

Photo provided by Gil Jones and owned by Clarence
“Pineapple” Garcia

L/R Pineapple (Garcia), Doug Brown in the back, Ron Kuhn and
Gil Jones in the front, in back on right is Paine and far
right is T.I. Toller. The hooch was the one between the
flight line and company orderly room.

Photo
was submitted by David Mosier & Bob Carr and is from Gilbert
Alvarado's photo Collection. This photograph is the property
of Gilbert Alvarado.

"Comanchero Hueys in Trail"

This is the legendary Khe Shan airstrip in the NE corner of RVN.
The picture was taken in 1970 pre Lam Son 719 while the airstrip was unoccupied
by any “US” personnel. If you look closely in the center of the picture you can
see "A101" that was painted on the strip by a A/101 AVN crew while on a CCN
mission (names withheld to protect the guilty)

Picture provided by Martin DiOrio

Helmet decal submitted by
Stephen Cipot, all rights reserved

The 101st Aviation Battalion (Assault
Helicopter) was awarded The Superior Unit Award for their Outstanding
Meritorious Performance in the Republic of Honduras during 1983-84

After A/101
returned from Vietnam, the Battalion swapped assets between A/101
and D/101. That is, the A. Co. became the Gunship Cmpany. and D. Co.
became the Slick Company. I was a crew chief in D Co. and we were
proudly known as the "Comancheros". It was our unit that later became A
4/101.

I will try to
tell you what I remember about the D/101 Comancheros. My perspective for
the most part is that of an 19 year old . I was assigned to D/101 from
4/1974 to 7/1976. I was an E-2 and was assigned right away to one of the
flight platoons as a crew chief. I was one of the few school trained
67N's. When I first got there the company was so desperate for crew
chiefs they were getting them from the motor pool. The draftees were
leaving the Army and their was no one to take their place. A "shake and
bake" Vietnam Vet Spec 5 was my mentor when I arrived. He made sure I
learned to crew a Huey the right way. The pilots were a mixture of
Vietnam Vets and guys right out of Flight School. Two of the Vets who I
know were in the the Battalion during Vietnam were CW2 Gene (Ray) Howell
and CW2 RC Morgan.

During this time D
Company started to change from the tactics learned during Vietnam. Our
emphasis was on fighting a "mid-intensity" conflict in Europe. We went from
doing tight 10-15 ship staggered daytime insertions to an LZ, to night time
cross FEBA loose V formations with the formation tightening up on short
final. We pioneered night operations that are now taken for granted today. NOE
as a doctrine was also pioneered by the 101st. D/101 provided Aircraft to the
NOE school which was started at Ft Campbell. One of our aircraft was
destroyed while being used by the school with pilots not assigned to our
unit. While I was with D/101 we had one fatality. During a Division level
field training exercise the Group and Battalion Safety Officer tried to beat a
thunderstorm while returning to Campbell AAF. They didn't make it. After
searching all night we found the aircraft. Only the tail boom was
recognizable. The two pilots, and a crew chief who from our unit, PFC Cowan,
were killed. During the summer we did a lot of TDY. We "fought" battles in
North and South Carolina, New York, New Hampshire, and Georgia. We always
kicked ass too. During the winter we stayed pretty close to home and had FTXs
out on the reservation. Although I was never shot at, it was still a hard life
for a crew chief. Formation at 6:30, then go out to the airfield. If our unit
wasn't flying then we were usually getting the aircraft ready to support the
NOE or Instrument training school. The crew chief during those days sat behind
and between the pilots in the jump seat. The PAX did not sit on the floor like
in Vietnam, they sat in seats that were back to back. Every time we picked up
troops (even during CA's) I had to get out of the aircraft and make sure the
troops were buckled in. Come to think of it, it's a good thing no one was
shooting. As I said, a lot of our activity was at night, so it was not
uncommon to finish a mission at one or two in the morning, daily and cover the
aircraft, and have to report for formation at 6:30am the next day. Crew rest
wasn't discussed much when came to crew chiefs.

Although we thought
of ourselves as the best flying unit in the 101st (and WAY better than those
Kingsmen and Black Widows!) we did not seem to have E'spirt de Corps that your
era or A 4/101 have. Maybe it was Watergate or the post war trauma or Jimmy
Carter's malaise, I don't know. Most of the people in my unit, Officers and
Enlisted, just seemed to be marking time until something better came along.

I've been watching
this site for two years and I seem to be the only one from my era with any
interest about the Comanchero web site. I guess this why D/101 was overlooked.
I'm sorry, but I don't have any pictures from this time, some how, they ended
up lost. This post is kind of a colloquial snap shot of the era.

Tom
Cavanaugh, 04/1974 - 07/1976, D/101 Avn Comanchero

Special Operations Group, SOG, Support

During 1970 and 1971 era, The Comancheros supported SOG
personnel on numerous missions in I Corp.The Comancheros were presented this plague in 1970 by CCN MLT 2 in appreciation
of the Comancheros aerial support on those missions.

The plague reads as follows

Company A 101st AVN BN

COMANCHEROS

FOR HAVING YOUR SHIT IN ORDER

THE BEST DAMN GNATS IN SE ASIA

This Comanchero
plague was presented to Richard Bittle in 2007 by LTC (Ret) Robert Clewell
in thanks for his work with A/101 Avn. Richard plans to present this
plaque to the new 101st Airborne Museum at Fort Campbell, KY
when it is built. In hopes that future generations can enjoy this special
part of our Comanchero legacy.

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